Linux From Scratch - Version 6.0

Chapter 6. Installing Basic System Software

6.33. Perl-5.8.5

The Perl package contains the Practical Extraction and Report Language.

Approximate build time: 2.9 SBU

Required disk space: 143 MB

Perl installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, Gawk, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, and Sed

6.33.1. Installation of Perl

To have full control over the way Perl is set up, run the interactive Configure script and hand-pick the way this package is built. If the defaults it auto-detects are suitable, prepare Perl for compilation with: 

./configure.gnu --prefix=/usr -Dpager="/bin/less -isR"

The meaning of the configure option:

-Dpager="/bin/less -isR"

This corrects an error in the perldoc code with the invocation of the less program.

Compile the package: 

make

To run the test suite, first create a basic /etc/hosts file which is needed by a couple of tests to resolve the network name localhost: 

echo "127.0.0.1 localhost $(hostname)" > /etc/hosts

Now run the tests, if desired: 

make test

Install the package: 

make install

6.33.2. Contents of Perl

Installed programs: a2p, c2ph, dprofpp, enc2xs, find2perl, h2ph, h2xs, libnetcfg, perl, perl5.8.5 (link to perl), perlbug, perlcc, perldoc, perlivp, piconv, pl2pm, pod2html, pod2latex, pod2man, pod2text, pod2usage, podchecker, podselect, psed (link to s2p), pstruct (link to c2ph), s2p, splain, and xsubpp

Installed libraries: Several hundred which cannot all be listed here

Short Descriptions

a2p

Translates awk to Perl

c2ph

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S

dprofpp

Displays Perl profile data

en2cxs

Builds a Perl extension for the Encode module from either Unicode Character Mappings or Tcl Encoding Files

find2perl

Translates find commands to Perl

h2ph

Converts .h C header files to .ph Perl header files

h2xs

Converts .h C header files to Perl extensions

libnetcfg

Can be used to configure the libnet

perl

Combines some of the best features of C, sed, awk and sh into a single swiss-army language

perl5.8.5

A hard link to perl

perlbug

Used to generate bug reports about Perl, or the modules that come with it, and mail them

perlcc

Generates executables from Perl programs

perldoc

Displays a piece of documentation in pod format that is embedded in the Perl installation tree or in a Perl script

perlivp

The Perl Installation Verification Procedure; it can be used to verify that Perl and its libraries have been installed correctly

piconv

A Perl version of the character encoding converter iconv

pl2pm

A rough tool for converting Perl4 .pl files to Perl5 .pm modules

pod2html

Converts files from pod format to HTML format

pod2latex

Converts files from pod format to LaTeX format

pod2man

Converts pod data to formatted *roff input

pod2text

Converts pod data to formatted ASCII text

pod2usage

Prints usage messages from embedded pod docs in files

podchecker

Checks the syntax of pod format documentation files

podselect

Displays selected sections of pod documentation

psed

A Perl version of the stream editor sed

pstruct

Dumps C structures as generated from cc -g -S stabs

s2p

Translates sed to Perl

splain

Is used to force verbose warning diagnostics in Perl

xsubpp

Converts Perl XS code into C code